Competitors

Competitors describe Weibo Corporation's market in their own filings and calls. These verified passages and visual pages show where their strategies meet, using source documents preserved in Sources.

Bilibili Inc. (BILI)

The peer whose advertising business has drawn level with Weibo's. Bilibili sells the same product Weibo sells - brand and performance advertising against a Chinese social content community, priced off user attention rather than transactions - and in 2025 it booked RMB10.1 billion of advertising revenue, roughly US$1.44 billion at the RMB6.99/US$ rate iQIYI's filing implies, against Weibo's US$1.50 billion. The two are now within about 4% of each other, having arrived from opposite directions: Bilibili's advertising grew 23% in 2025 and 30% in the March 2026 quarter, its thirteenth consecutive quarter of double-digit growth, while Weibo's advertising and marketing revenue has been flat at US$1.50bn/US$1.50bn/US$1.53bn across 2025/2024/2023. The vertical overlap is close to complete - Bilibili's top five verticals are games, digital products and home appliances, internet services, e-commerce and automotive, which is a fair description of Weibo's key accounts too - and Bilibili is explicit that it is taking share rather than riding a growing market. Its user base is smaller than Weibo's (368m MAUs, 112m DAUs against Weibo's 567m and 252m) but it discloses something Weibo does not: 108 minutes of daily time spent per user, growing.

Bilibili's own account of its 2025 advertising year, from the Q4 FY2025 call held 5 March 2026. Full-year advertising revenue of RMB10.1 billion, up 23%, with the December quarter accelerating to RMB3.0 billion and 27%. Two things matter for a Weibo reader. First, scale: at the ~RMB6.99/US$ rate implied by peer filings, RMB10.1bn is about US$1.44 billion against Weibo's US$1.50 billion of advertising and marketing revenue in the same year, so a business Weibo comfortably out-earned a few years ago is now essentially the same size and growing more than 20 points faster. Second, mix: the top five verticals named here - games, digital products and home appliances, internet services, e-commerce, automotive - map closely onto the categories Weibo depends on, and the two fastest-moving lines Bilibili cites (home decoration up over 80%, AI-related budgets up nearly 180%) are consumer and technology budgets that have to come from somewhere. 'Industry-leading growth' is Bilibili's characterisation of its own numbers, not an independent measurement.

Rui Chen (Chairman and CEO), prepared remarks: First, we were very encouraged to see our advertising business deliver better-than-expected results in Q4. Advertising revenues accelerated to RMB 3.0 billion, up 27% year-over-year and full year advertising revenues increased by 23% to RMB 10.1 billion. This industry-leading growth reflects both the rising value of our user base and our continued progress in improving ad efficiency. […] In Q4, the top 5 ad verticals were games, digital products and home appliances, Internet services, e-commerce and automotive. Home decoration was a standout with ad spend jumping over 80% year-over-year, another strong signal that our users are maturing and seeking more lifestyle-focused upgrades. AI advertisers also ramped up with AIrelated ad budgets climbing nearly 180% year-over-year in Q4, and that momentum has carried into 2026.

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Bilibili management's stated view of how Chinese ad budgets are being redistributed, given in answer to a question about second-half industry trends on the Q2 FY2025 call. The claim is consolidation: advertisers are cutting the number of platforms they buy and concentrating spend on the ones they consider 'indispensable and unique,' and the winners will take a larger share of a client budget that is not itself growing. That framing is a description of the mechanism by which Bilibili's advertising can grow 20-30% while Weibo's stays flat, and it is the sharpest articulation in this file of the structural risk to a mature social platform that is neither the largest reach buy nor a closed-loop conversion channel. The second half of the passage - the argument that brand budgets will return and that young users are unignorable - is Bilibili's pitch for its own positioning, and the closing promise of 'growth above industry average' is guidance, not fact.

Bilibili management (interpreted), answering Miranda Zhuang, Bank of America Securities: From industry vertical standpoint, in the near term, we think the advertisers’ budget are migrating from multiple platforms to a few core platforms, platforms that are indispensable and unique will capture larger shares of the client budget. And in the longer term, as China’s consumer market involves advertiser will be placing more emphasizing on building their brands on top of the pure sales conversion budget because no advertiser can afford to ignore the influence and purchasing power of young people. […] So in summary, whether in long term or short term, as long as our community continue to thrive, the value of Bilibili’s advertising business will become increasingly evident over time. We remain confident in our ability to sustain the growth above industry average.

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Autohome Inc. (ATHM)

Weibo's own 20-F says it competes with 'digital media tailored to vertical industries, such as automobile and IT.' Autohome is that company. It is China's largest auto-vertical media platform (77.5 million mobile DAUs in December 2025 on QuestMobile data, first among automotive service platforms), it sells brand advertising to the same automakers that buy Weibo's auto campaigns, and its competition section names Sina - Weibo's controlling shareholder and the portal whose automotive channel sits alongside Weibo in an OEM media plan - as a direct competitor. Autohome matters here less as a share rival than as the cleanest available thermometer for a vertical Weibo depends on and does not break out. Autohome's media services line is almost pure automaker brand advertising, and it fell 24.3% in 2025 to RMB1,153.4 million after falling 18.6% in 2024 and 4.7% in 2023 - a three-year contraction of roughly 41% - which management attributes to the OEM price war, dealer losses and shrinking internal-combustion volumes rather than to share loss. Anyone modelling Weibo's auto vertical is modelling the same budget pool, measured here by a company that has to report it as a separate line.

Autohome's competition section from its FY2025 Form 20-F. It is one of the few places in this file where a peer names the subject's group: 'the automotive channels of major internet portals, such as Sina and Sohu' sit in the same sentence as BitAuto, Dongchedi, Xcar and PCauto, followed immediately by 'companies engaged in mobile social media, news, video and live-streaming applications' - the category Weibo occupies. The second passage adds ByteDance and Tencent as social-media competitors. Read as a market map rather than a ranking, it places the auto advertising budget as contested between three groups: the auto verticals themselves, the general portals and social platforms (Sina/Weibo, Sohu), and the short-video and super-app ecosystems. Autohome does not size any of these positions or claim a share number, and its inclusion of a competitor says nothing about how much of an OEM's budget that competitor actually wins.

With respect to our auto media and leads generation businesses, we face competition from mainland China’s automotive vertical websites and mobile applications, such as BitAuto, Dongchedi, Xcar and PCauto, from the automotive channels of major internet portals, such as Sina and Sohu, and from companies engaged in mobile social media, news, video and live-streaming applications. […] In addition, we also face competition from companies engaged in social media business, such as ByteDance and Tencent, companies engaged in data product offering, such as BitAuto and Dongchedi, and companies engaged in AI and big data technologies.

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The auto advertising recession, as Autohome reports it in the MD&A of its FY2025 20-F. Media services - the line that is substantially automaker brand advertising and regional campaigns - fell 24.3% to RMB1,153.4 million (US$164.9 million), and Autohome attributes it entirely to demand, not competition: 'reduced advertising spending by ICE automakers amid shrinking sales volumes in the ICE segment.' The three-year path in the same filing is RMB1,870.8m (2023), RMB1,523.1m (2024), RMB1,153.4m (2025), a 38% decline, over a period when the number of automakers buying media services barely moved (96, 101, 96) and the top five stayed near a quarter of the line at 24.1%. Leads generation, the dealer-funded performance line, fell 13.6% alongside it. Weibo does not disclose revenue by vertical, so this cannot be mapped onto its accounts directly; what it establishes is that the auto brand-advertising pool one of Weibo's named competitor categories sells into contracted sharply in 2025 for reasons outside any platform's control.

Our net revenues decreased by 8.3% from RMB7,039.6 million in 2024 to RMB6,452.0 million (US$922.6 million) in 2025.

Media services. Our media services revenues decreased by 24.3% from RMB1,523.1 million in 2024 to RMB1,153.4 million (US$164.9 million) in 2025. The decrease in revenues from our media services was primarily due to reduced advertising spending by ICE automakers amid shrinking sales volumes in the ICE segment.

Leads generation services. Leads generation services revenues decreased by 13.6% from RMB3,135.9 million in 2024 to RMB2,709.2 million (US$387.4 million) in 2025.

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Autohome's CFO answering an analyst on the outlook for the traditional media and leads businesses, Q3 FY2025 call. The transmission mechanism is stated plainly: OEM promotional discounts running above 23% mean automakers are spending on price rather than on media, and management expected that to keep pressuring media services revenue into the December quarter. On the same call Autohome added that more than half of dealers were operating at a loss in the first half of 2025, and on the Q4 call in March 2026 it put the auto sector's profit margin at 4.1%, down from 4.3%. The passage is a transcript from a third-party provider and reads roughly in places ('So, the price significantly' is an evident gap); the numbers, however, are consistent with the 24.3% media services decline reported in the 20-F. It is management's read of its own customers' budgets, not an industry survey.

Xiaodan Zhang (CICC) and Craig Yan Zeng (Chief Financial Officer), interpreted: Xiaodan Zhang: [Interpreted] So can management share your outlook on the traditional business for the upcoming quarters? And also, is there any update on the shareholder return plans?

Yan Zeng: [Interpreted] Thank you for your question. In the third quarter, we do see that the OEM promotional discount still remains at high level and the price war has been there for so long. And the overall discount for OEMs has already exceeding 23%. So, for the car sales volume and profit, I still remain concentrated among the leading companies. So, the price significantly. And the continued decline is mainly due to the continued pressure from the OEMs price war in the market. And as Q4 approaches to the year-end, and we believe OEMs is expected to maintain high professional discounts to boost their sales revenues and this still put pressure on our media services revenue.

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iQIYI, Inc. (IQ)

The largest single competitor for Chinese brand advertising in this file, and the platform whose content drives much of what Weibo's users talk about. iQIYI booked RMB5,193.4 million (US$742.6 million) of online advertising in 2025 - roughly half of Weibo's advertising revenue - and sells it against dramas, variety shows and, increasingly, micro dramas, competing with Weibo for the entertainment, FMCG, internet-services and e-commerce budgets that both platforms count as core. The competitive relationship runs two ways: iQIYI's risk factors name 'internet social platforms' and 'short video platforms' among the services it competes with for user traffic and advertising customers, while Weibo's celebrity and drama verticals are commercially dependent on the content iQIYI and its rivals commission. iQIYI's 2025 was a down year on both lines that matter - advertising down 9.1%, membership down 5.4% - and it attributes the advertising decline to advertisers adjusting strategy 'in response to macro pressure,' which is the same demand backdrop Weibo has been operating in. Its Q4 commentary on which verticals actually grew is the closest thing here to a category-level read on Chinese brand budgets.

iQIYI's competition risk factor from its FY2025 Form 20-F. Notable for what it puts in the competitive set: alongside other long-form video services, iQIYI lists 'micro drama platforms, internet social platforms and short video platforms, as well as major TV stations' as rivals for content, user traffic and advertising customers. 'Internet social platforms' is the category Weibo sits in, and the framing is symmetrical with Weibo's own filing, which lists multimedia content platforms and online media platforms among its competitors. The last sentence is the more useful disclosure for sizing purposes: iQIYI's stated view is that most large mainland advertisers still direct a significant share of budget to traditional television, which if true means the online brand pool both companies fish in is smaller than total advertising spend implies. iQIYI offers no figures for any of this - it is a risk-factor characterisation, and the typography ('wil likely') is as filed.

We face competition for content production, content sourcing, user traffic and advertising customers from other providers of online entertainment video services primarily in Chinese mainland. We also compete with other internet media and entertainment services, such as micro drama platforms, internet social platforms and short video platforms, as well as major TV stations. Some of our competitors have a longer operating history and significantly greater financial resources than we do, and, in turn, may be able to attract and retain more users, usage time and advertising customers. In particular, most large companies in Chinese mainland allocate, and wil likely continue to allocate, a significant portion of their advertising budgets to traditional media such as major TV stations.

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iQIYI's 2025 revenue bridge from the MD&A of its FY2025 20-F. Online advertising fell 9.1% to RMB5,193.4 million (US$742.6 million), attributed to advertisers adjusting spending 'in response to macro pressure'; membership fell 5.4%, attributed partly to 'the competition among online entertainment video service providers.' The advertising line is about half the size of Weibo's US$1,501.6 million and moving down, which frames Weibo's flat advertising result differently than a standalone reading would: the largest long-form video seller of brand advertising in this peer set lost ground in the same year. The membership explanation is worth separating out - that decline is a fight among Tencent Video, Youku, Mango and iQIYI over subscription share, not something Weibo participates in. Both attributions are management's, given in a filing with an obvious interest in ascribing weakness to the market rather than to itself.

Our revenues decreased by 6.6% from RMB29,225.2 million in 2024 to RMB27,291.3 million (US$3,902.6 million) in 2025.

Membership services. Our membership services revenue decreased by 5.4% from RMB17,762.8 million in 2024 to RMB16,807.3 million (US$2,403.4 million) in 2025, primarily due to a lighter content slate and the competition among online entertainment video service providers.

Online advertising services. Our online advertising services revenue decreased by 9.1% from RMB5,714.2 million in 2024 to RMB5,193.4 million (US$742.6 million) in 2025, as some advertisers adjusted their advertising and promotion strategies in response to macro pressure

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iQIYI's category-level read on the December 2025 quarter, from the Q4 FY2025 call held 26 February 2026. Brand advertising returned to annual and sequential growth, with food and beverage, internet services, e-commerce and telecom services each up double digits, and commercial (performance) advertising recovering sequentially on the back of small and mid-sized advertisers. Those four verticals overlap with Weibo's key accounts, so the exhibit reads as evidence that the brand pool stabilised late in the year even though iQIYI's full-year advertising still fell 9.1% - the recovery is a fourth-quarter phenomenon on a weak base. The micro-drama point is the forward-looking one: iQIYI says brands are now buying product placement and theatre branding inside micro dramas, a format that did not exist as an ad channel two years ago and that competes for the same short-attention budgets Weibo sells. No revenue figures are attached to any of these claims on the call.

iQIYI management, prepared remarks (as transcribed): Moving on to advertising business. In Q4, brand advertising revenue growth both annually and sequentially, ad revenues from variety shows and our dramas both delivered double-digit annual growth, while core ad verticals such as food and beverage, Internet services and e-commerce and telecom services all recorded double-digit annual growth. Beyond long-form videos, our micro dramas and micro variety shows are gaining considerable attention from brand advertisers. […] For commercial ads, we regained sequential revenue growth in Q4, driven by a healthier and more balanced advertiser portfolio. Revenue from small and midsized advertisers grew both annually and sequentially. By vertical, Internet services, e-commerce and financial services led growth.

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Hello Group Inc. (Momo, Tantan) (MOMO)

The closest read available on Weibo's value-added services business, which is where Weibo's live streaming, membership and virtual-gifting revenue sits. Hello Group is the pure play: 98.5% of its RMB10,367.1 million (US$1,482.5 million) of 2025 revenue came from value-added services, essentially all of it virtual gifting and subscriptions across Momo, Tantan and its overseas apps - a business roughly 5.7x the size of Weibo's US$255.6 million VAS line and run with no meaningful advertising revenue to cushion it. It also competes with Weibo more directly than the size gap suggests: both are mobile social platforms monetising interest-based discovery and live audio/video interaction, and Hello Group's own competition disclosure frames the fight as one for 'a larger share of marketing budgets' against rivals with broader product ranges. What makes it worth reading is that its domestic numbers are deteriorating in the open - Momo paying users have fallen from 7.4 million to 3.9 million in two years and mainland revenue from RMB11.2 billion to RMB8.4 billion - giving an unusually explicit account of what has happened to the Chinese virtual-gifting economy that Weibo's VAS line also depends on.

Hello Group's headline operating and revenue disclosure from its FY2025 Form 20-F. Momo app paying users of 7.4 million (Q4 2023), 5.7 million (Q4 2024) and 3.9 million (Q4 2025) - a 47% decline in two years - alongside group revenue falling from RMB12,002.3 million to RMB10,367.1 million and net income from RMB1,951.7 million to RMB806.5 million. Management attributes the paying-user decline to a deliberate cull of negative-ROI low spenders rather than to demand, a framing that has to be weighed against the fact that revenue and profit fell with it. For Weibo the relevance is directional: value-added services are 98.5% of Hello Group's revenue against roughly 15% of Weibo's (US$255.6 million of US$1,757.2 million in 2025), so this is the same virtual-gifting and membership economy observed at much higher magnification, and it has been contracting for three years.

We seek to improve profitability of our Momo business and we monitor the number and spending of Momo paying users as an indicator of our performance. The numbers of paying users of our Momo app were 7.4 million for the fourth quarter of 2023, 5.7 million for the fourth quarter of 2024 and 3.9 million for the fourth quarter of 2025. The decrease in Momo’s paying users in 2025 was primarily due to our strategic emphasis on profitability. This strategic focus resulted in a reduction in the acquisition of low-paying users with negative ROI, which is conducive to enhancing profitability. […] We recorded revenues of RMB12,002.3 million in 2023, RMB10,563.0 million in 2024 and RMB10,367.1 million (US$1,482.5 million) in 2025. We currently generate our revenues from value-added services and other services. Value-added service revenues mainly include virtual gift revenues from various audio, video and text-based scenarios, and membership subscription revenues. Value-added services represented 98.5%, 98.6% and 98.5% of our net revenues in 2023, 2024 and 2025, respectively. We had a net income of RMB1,951.7 million in 2023, RMB1,039.6 million in 2024 and RMB806.5 million (US$115.3 million) in 2025

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The same decline broken into its parts, from Hello Group's FY2025 MD&A. Group revenue fell because mainland China fell - RMB11,204.0 million in 2023 to RMB8,367.1 million in 2025 on the geographic table on the same page, with overseas rising from 6.7% to 19.3% of the total and offsetting most of the domestic loss. The value-added services explanation names three causes: 'external factors that influenced the operational focus of certain broadcasters and agencies' (the standard formulation for regulatory tightening on live streaming and talent agencies), weak consumer sentiment, and Tantan's shrinking user base. Weibo's VAS revenue was flat at US$255.6 million in 2025 against US$256.0 million in 2024, so it has not seen the same fall - but the two businesses draw on the same pool of Chinese users willing to pay for virtual gifts and memberships, and Hello Group's answer to the domestic squeeze has been to move offshore, an option Weibo has not pursued.

Net revenues decreased from RMB12,002.3 million in 2023 to RMB10,563.0 million in 2024, and decreased to RMB10,367.1 million (US$1,482.5 million) in 2025, primarily due to declines in net revenues from Chinese mainland, including Momo app and Tantan app. The declines were largely offset by growth in net revenues from audio-and video-based products in the Middle East and North Africa region, primarily by new apps, along with incremental revenue from dating brands outside of Middle East and North Africa region. […] 2025 compared to 2024. Revenues from our value-added service decreased by 1.9% to RMB10,213.7 million (US$1,460.5 million) in 2025 from RMB10,415.6 million in 2024, primarily due to external factors that influenced the operational focus of certain broadcasters and agencies as well as the weak consumer sentiment on Momo app, and to a lesser extent, the decline in Tantan resulting from a decline in user base.

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Hello Group's competition risk factor, FY2025 20-F. It describes the market as fragmented and highly competitive, and frames the disadvantage in terms Weibo shareholders will recognise: competitors with more cash, traffic and broadcaster relationships, and 'broader product or service offerings' that let them 'leverage their relationships based on other products or services to gain a larger share of marketing budgets.' That is the standard mid-cap Chinese internet complaint about competing with Tencent, ByteDance and Alibaba ecosystems, and it applies with equal force to Weibo, which makes the same argument in its own filing. No competitor is named and no share figure is given - this is a generic risk disclosure, included because it is the clearest statement in Hello Group's filings of who it believes it is losing budget to and why.

As a social networking platform that provides multiple services, including value-added service, mobile marketing services and other services, we are subject to intense competition from providers of similar services, as well as potential new types of online services. Our competitors may have substantially more cash, traffic, technical, broadcasters, business networks and other resources, as well as broader product or service offerings and can leverage their relationships based on other products or services to gain a larger share of marketing budgets. We may be unable to compete successfull against these competitors or new market entrants, which may adversely affect our business and financial performance.

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Competitors

Bilibili Inc. (BILI)

Autohome Inc. (ATHM)

iQIYI, Inc. (IQ)

Hello Group Inc. (Momo, Tantan) (MOMO)

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